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Well, thanks for giving me a chance David. Sorry you've been repeatedly disappointed. If you'd look on my site for about five minutes, you'd see 2 of the last

Well, thanks for giving me a chance David. Sorry you've been repeatedly disappointed. If you'd look on my site for about five minutes, you'd see 2 of the last 10 entries I made reference a nonprofit project I'm doing with along with some really great people. I've had some reasonable success contracting, and I'm doing mostly charitable work for the next 2-3 months. Anyway, I always appreciate feedback. More editing and polish, that's useful. If you'd like feedback in return, I might recommend spending more time on your own writing and doing things that are meaningful to you, instead of worrying about others on the net. Looks like you only wrote one blog post in 2012 -- about a customer in Nigeria -- and that was back in July. Wouldn't you be better served by being an exemplar of good writing than putting together criticism in comments on the internet?

skore 14y ago
Thank you, but I'd really like others to chime in here. I did look through your site and yes, some of the posts do reference some projects. Again an instance of hinting at doing work instead of talking about it. I did write "only one" blog post, yes, because I only tend to write when I care about something. That article about the developer in Nigeria is a good example - I suppose there are very few articles like it and I only wrote about it because I found that I learned something that was new to me - and that I wanted to share with others. However, I'm not much of a writer and you will find that I comment very little on HN - maybe a topic or two a day. I decide against posting comments more often than I decide for posting them (closing a comment window after having written something is a frequent occurrence) and actually took about a year off some while ago. Recently, I think a lot about getting rid of my blog altogether since I'm often not sure whether I'm just wasting peoples time. And thanks for the tip, but I already do spend pretty much all of my time doing things that are meaningful to me - my family, friends and of course my job as a self employed programmer of FOSS.
polshaw 14y ago
Not OK. Maybe, somehow, you intended this to be genuinely friendly advice, but it comes off as stinking. You put your blogging out there for criticism when you submit it, criticism that is appropriate and useful to others in the comment thread of that blog post. This is not a comment thread about skore's blogging; which does not appear to be core to his activities. Even if the 'what the hell does this guy even do' part was not fair (i'm making no judgement on that) it does not reflect well for you to respond by going to much greater lengths to seek out and critique a blog from a commenter, whilst simultaneously suggesting they don't critique your work.
- lionhearted 14y ago
  Actually I empathize with the guy. I used to make negative and critical comments online about lots of stuff I didn't like -- writing or writers, entertainment, culture, politicians, whatever. But the thing is, that's a really bad waste of life. Constructive criticism, learning, analyzing can be useful. Negativity to no constructive end? It wastes days and weeks and months and years of our lives.
  - skore 14y ago
    If that's the impression you get of me from one comment, then I'm afraid it seems a lot like projection. I enjoy debating online (debating in general, actually) - in a limited fashion, mostly for procrastination, at times. As with all things - the dose makes the poison. That's really all there is to it. In fact, your comment again reflects the problem that I have with your other writing - What you say isn't necessarily in itself wrong (apart from the fact that I don't think it applies to me), but I don't know what you say it for. And I'm not even sure you know.
jrajav 14y ago
> Anyway, I always appreciate feedback. If you actually mean that, some candid advice: - Lists are good for enumerating points but not as the entire medium for your work. They don't scale well. After more than a few points, especially if they don't naturally correlate, it becomes harder to follow than simple prose. If you find it difficult to bring the points together, try recording yourself going down the list and briefly explaining each one in turn to a rubber duck. - Try to use only as many words as you need to, but no more or less. Several of your points could have been rolled into one more coherent point, and some of them could have used a little more digging too. Again, reading aloud would help with this. - "Takeaways / Action" as a header is a little forward. Let the reader decide for themselves what the takeaway should be, or if you want to address them directly, do so. It's already implied that someone taking their time to read your article is looking for a takeaway to make it worth their while. - Spell check before you post.

skore 14y ago

Thank you, but I'd really like others to chime in here. I did look through your site and yes, some of the posts do reference some projects. Again an instance of hinting at doing work instead of talking about it. I did write "only one" blog post, yes, because I only tend to write when I care about something. That article about the developer in Nigeria is a good example - I suppose there are very few articles like it and I only wrote about it because I found that I learned something that was new to me - and that I wanted to share with others. However, I'm not much of a writer and you will find that I comment very little on HN - maybe a topic or two a day. I decide against posting comments more often than I decide for posting them (closing a comment window after having written something is a frequent occurrence) and actually took about a year off some while ago. Recently, I think a lot about getting rid of my blog altogether since I'm often not sure whether I'm just wasting peoples time. And thanks for the tip, but I already do spend pretty much all of my time doing things that are meaningful to me - my family, friends and of course my job as a self employed programmer of FOSS.

polshaw 14y ago

Not OK. Maybe, somehow, you intended this to be genuinely friendly advice, but it comes off as stinking. You put your blogging out there for criticism when you submit it, criticism that is appropriate and useful to others in the comment thread of that blog post. This is not a comment thread about skore's blogging; which does not appear to be core to his activities. Even if the 'what the hell does this guy even do' part was not fair (i'm making no judgement on that) it does not reflect well for you to respond by going to much greater lengths to seek out and critique a blog from a commenter, whilst simultaneously suggesting they don't critique your work.

lionhearted 14y ago
Actually I empathize with the guy. I used to make negative and critical comments online about lots of stuff I didn't like -- writing or writers, entertainment, culture, politicians, whatever. But the thing is, that's a really bad waste of life. Constructive criticism, learning, analyzing can be useful. Negativity to no constructive end? It wastes days and weeks and months and years of our lives.
- skore 14y ago
  If that's the impression you get of me from one comment, then I'm afraid it seems a lot like projection. I enjoy debating online (debating in general, actually) - in a limited fashion, mostly for procrastination, at times. As with all things - the dose makes the poison. That's really all there is to it. In fact, your comment again reflects the problem that I have with your other writing - What you say isn't necessarily in itself wrong (apart from the fact that I don't think it applies to me), but I don't know what you say it for. And I'm not even sure you know.

jrajav 14y ago

> Anyway, I always appreciate feedback. If you actually mean that, some candid advice: - Lists are good for enumerating points but not as the entire medium for your work. They don't scale well. After more than a few points, especially if they don't naturally correlate, it becomes harder to follow than simple prose. If you find it difficult to bring the points together, try recording yourself going down the list and briefly explaining each one in turn to a rubber duck. - Try to use only as many words as you need to, but no more or less. Several of your points could have been rolled into one more coherent point, and some of them could have used a little more digging too. Again, reading aloud would help with this. - "Takeaways / Action" as a header is a little forward. Let the reader decide for themselves what the takeaway should be, or if you want to address them directly, do so. It's already implied that someone taking their time to read your article is looking for a takeaway to make it worth their while. - Spell check before you post.